Once upon a time.

Those four simple words can charm children into being quiet and sitting around a person eager to hear the telling of a story. They can make the sweet and romantic heart of a young woman swoon to hear the tale of a two young lovers. Or make a young man daydream of becoming a conquering hero defeating a monstrous beast or winning the heart of a fair maiden. Stories have existed for so long, even before the idea of writing them down, they were being told around firesides and whenever a friend came to visit or help a friend. After greeting each other it would be sitting down with something to drink or eat and then the stories would begin. Nowadays when people mingle we tend to call those stories gossip, but they are stories, woven from fact, opinion, and a touch of imagination. Over the existence of humanity we began to want to have our words immortalized, remembered for years or centuries after we have long since passed on to the other side. So clay, paper, leaves, or even animal skin has been used to hold our stories alive. As a human being in the 21st century, I have come to love the existence of story-telling, be it from a book or from a person.

So why am I going on about stories? It is because for all my love of stories and telling people about stories, I had not thought to tell anyone my story. Wellll to be precise several stories. Okay, okay since elementary school I have thought of tons of stories to tell. Alright to be accurate I have come up with about fifty stories. Yet as much as I love the ideas that come to me for those stories, there has been one that has been with me for a long time.

Now I am going to give you a heads-up: I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Like siriusly I plan on getting a HP tattoo. I love the world J.K. Rowling created; it’s because of her story that I’ve become a better person. Now Harry Potter isn’t the only one that influenced me but if I hadn’t read it my story would not have become what it is today. You see when I was six years old I went and saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerers’s Stone. After that I was hooked on Harry Potter. I can’t tell you how many times I imagined myself going to Hogwarts and how many ways I thought of going up just to put on the Sorting Hat.

As the years went by I was becoming a fan of magic. Angel, Hercules, Charmed, and Sabrina Teenage Witch are just a small, SMALL, handful of shows that expanded my love for it. There were also some books that sparked it. Why one small little series found it’s way to capture my heart just like Harry Potter had. It is called the Unicorns of Balinor by Mary Stanton. That series was like a gateway to the heaven of chocolate. In that story the Unicorns are able to cross into other worlds and as I loved this idea I imagined that this world crossed into the Harry Potter world. I’d imagine I was a character in one book and I could go to the other book and be this important heroine, (I have to thank Buffy and Xena for the wanting to be a heroine). This went on until I was in fifth grade when a new series found its way in my life and all I can say is this. Thank the Lord for Anne McCaffrey!

Okay I know that was a little unclear, so to begin with I’ll let you in on a fact about my first sight of the Dragonrider series. Boring! You see my mom and I love reading but we don’t have the same interest in genres. Except fantasy. Also during this time I was desperately wanting to separate myself as far from my mom as I could mentally and emotionally.

I was in the last grade of elementary school and had almost read all the interesting fantasy, fictional books in the library. One day I came across my mom reading Anne McCaffrey’s book, I thought it looked good because there was a dragon on it; then she told me it was sci-fi. Blah was what I thought and I decided not to read it. The only sci-fi I was interested in was the sci-fi channel. However one day after the library I saw the book The Girl Who Heard Dragons. So I picked it up and began to read it and--sighh what can I say: I fell in love. After a few pages I knocked my stubborn wall down and decided to read the series. At the library I checked out the first book of the series Dragonflight and well history had shown me that I’d start picturing myself in that world. And boy did I fall into that world quick. So three completely different worlds became one in my heart, however Dragonflight and Balinor existed on different worlds whereas Harry Potter was only in London.

But that didn’t stop me from dreaming up a world made from them and making a world entirely of my own. While in middle school I began to feel that I wanted to write it down to tell the world my dreams. My desire to help the world wanted to leap out and shout it from the roof top. Yet it just wasn’t right, though the stories I made were good it just was hard to remember what parts I liked. Then oh then the most glorious and obvious thing to do was.. to write it down.

That spark happened in 8th grade and all thanks to Mrs—something that I can’t remember. English class though not my number one hated class it was one that I preferred not to take, mostly because of poetry. But there came a day when we were given the chance to write a story. Now before this my stories consisted of me saving the animals of the world, but I had finally got the idea that I was going to tell someone my dream. Eager to get started I grabbed a stack of paper and started writing, I wrote and typed like a mad man running from the cops. During that year I wrote down any idea of how a character looked, quotes, and bits that I could write into a chapter. I was so proud of my work until that dreaded day when I began to see the difference between my story and the stories of my beloved authors. Every book I had read just had more spunk to it. I’d also bought books on writing and the examples they had, just made me take one look at my writing and want to toss it away.

As I entered high school I rewrote and edited, then re-edited then rewrote my first chapter a gazillion times. Every time I looked at my old writings my stomach would twist up like it was going to hurl, my heart would ache wanting to tell my story to the world, but I wanted it to be perfect. So for two years I just wrote tidbits and daydreamed more and more about this world. I also began to read a lot more books, discovering worlds and new people. After reading or even during the times I read I’d put a little note down about something a character said, looked like, or what the world was like. Then I’d sit and think and think, imagining what if or how could that be. Then I’d start applying it to my story. My story though not written in a novel form, began to take a life of its own, shaping as my knowledge grew until I started having a world that could be seen as realistic. Well, as realistic as one could imagine it.

Yet I just could not write a chapter down. It was like I’d take one step but then the other foot would be caught in mud. I was both too scared and too lazy to do anything about it. I knew I had to do something or else I’d never have the courage to tell the world my story.

Soon the day of getting my lazy butt up and writing more than lines came. It happened during the fall of my junior year. I had moved to Colorado that August and was attending Mesa Ridge High School; I had yet to find something to do besides going to school and going back home. One day on the bus I heard this girl telling the bus driver about a club that if she got her book finished by spring she would have the possibility of giving it to an editor and a possible chance of getting it published. At one of the stops I moved from my seat in the back and moved to the front and asked her when it was and where. The club was called Writers Fusion and was held by three teachers two English teachers Mr. Dyer and Mr. Something I can’t remember and the Drama teacher Mr. Mac.

That Thursday awoke my spirit to write again. Hearing the students read their stories aloud to everyone had me wanting to do just that. So I went home and just wrote, however it wasn’t until 2014 when I read the book Divergent and found the author’s note where she had written that the trick to writing a novel is just to get it out. Just start writing and don’t edit, that, that is what finally got me to realize I don’t have to edit one chapter after I’m done writing it. However it was Writers Fushion that got me into writing my beloved story again. I’m very glad that I had found that club or else I would have never had the guts to get out of the ditch I’d dug.

Now I don’t have a really good pitch for my story yet. The only pitch I have right now is- A girl who has to fight a spirit demon. What exactly is a spirit demon? Well, it’s my little creation along with Gate Guardians, draicorns, and the Gates of the world. It’s all about a girl who holds the key to Hell’s Gate and she was cursed by a jealous goddess. She was also cursed because her mother was created by a god who created her mother without the Almighty God’s help. However the second curse--by the goddess--is worse because the son of the most powerful dragon was also cursed with her.

Also her mother is a draicorn which is a dragon and unicorn combining both dragon fire and the unicorn’s healing powers together. Her mother along with the boy’s father--the dragon--became human, along with other creatures, so they could protect the Gates of All the Worlds. These Gates connect all worlds together and animals from the most powerful creatures such as the draicorn to a simple creature like a deer protect the Gates from being destroyed. For if a Gate is destroyed that world is gone. Now the girl who is the daughter of the draicorn must stop a spirit demon named Karyan from finding the Main Gate and from opening the Gates to Hell. Yet here is the twist. Every time she has been reborn on a world she has almost always died before the enemy has been killed or captured once and for all.

Odd? I know, but you want to know how I came up with it? Stories, stories, and stories-oh- and more stories.